Talk:United States Presidential Election, 1932 (Joe Steele)
It mentions Herbert Hoover's lack of charisma in comparison to the "folksy" Steele. I seem to recall Stalin being a pretty boring dude to listen to. Jelay14 20:43, May 20, 2010 (UTC) :Well maybe the changed circumstances of his upbringing changed that, but not his innate desire to tyrannize. You'd expect something to be different as a result of, what was it, fifty-three years of his life under radically different circumstances? Turtle Fan 04:36, May 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Four years later I reviewed and revised. Steele isn't depicted as a particularly interesting speaker in the story, but we learn that his campaign is utterly relentless, with people stumping for him and posting bill and passing out leaflets, etc. There's a flip remark to the effect that couples can't even have sex without someone else jumping into their bed telling them to vote Steele. TR (talk) 22:43, November 20, 2014 (UTC) :::Sounds more like life after his rise to power. If he lacked charisma, I wonder how he got so many people to campaign so hard for him? Hatred of Hoover, while a powerful motivator, didn't give Roosevelt that kind of passionate following in OTL. If he was using coercion, the people he was coercing would not have been nearly so enthusiastic or diligent. Ruling through fear is the real Stalin's MO, of course, but one can only instill so much of that when one is not yet in power. Really the only thing I can see having that kind of an effect under those circumstances is money, lots and lots of it. Maybe HT will have him rob a bank? Actually, I would not be surprised if he had Stalin form an alliance with John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde or someone like that. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:55, November 22, 2014 (UTC) ::Wasn't he a bank robber in his younger day in OTL? At least I think the mugshot we have of him in the TL-191 section was for armed robbery or something similar rather than for political activities. ML4E (talk) 19:23, November 22, 2014 (UTC) ::::He orchestrated an attack on a stage coach transporting cash from the Tbilisi post office to that city's branch of the imperial state bank. The attackers made off with roughly $7 million, inflation adjusted. I believe that was a world record for a while, but the police had a list of all the notes' serial numbers on file, so Stalin and his conspirators couldn't use any of it. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:59, November 23, 2014 (UTC) :::He was. I like the idea of his OTL activities being referenced somehow. Obviously, he can't get caught (well, maybe as a juvie--that can get buried) but it could be interesting. TR (talk) 02:17, November 23, 2014 (UTC) ::::Oh I wouldn't be so sure that he has to avoid getting caught. Gangsters were so romanticized in the Prohibition era. If he were a notorious bank robber or bootlegger or some such who managed to become something of a folk hero, and either beat a rap or got off with a light sentence, that's one of the likelier ways I can think of that the anemic son of a failed shoemaker and immigrant from a pissy little country no one's heard of could raise his profile all the way to election to the House. It might also have some relationship to Hoover's worming his way into the inner circle: maybe the FBI has something more damning on him than the popular imagination can conceive of. ::::Or maybe not, but if HT's taking a story that left very few questions unanswered and sextupling it in length, he's going to have to come up with a few subplots somewhere. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:59, November 23, 2014 (UTC) Norman Thomas addition Norman Thomas received 0 electoral votes and about 884,000 popular votes in OTL. We have no information to suggest he did better in JS than he did in OTL. I see no value in adding him in here. TR (talk) 20:34, February 17, 2018 (UTC) ::He is name checked as part of HT's JS universe, and the fact that his showing was not altered is a bit a background colour for the novel.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 20:36, February 17, 2018 (UTC) :::Mentioning it in the lit comm will be sufficient. "HT tossed off a reference to Thomas. No reason to think he did better than OTL." Including him in the template is overkill. TR (talk) 20:42, February 17, 2018 (UTC) :::I agree with TR. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:16, February 18, 2018 (UTC) :::According to Wikipedia, there were five other candidates besides Norman Thomas. He got 2.23% of the popular vote with the next highest (William Z. Foster / Communist Party) at 0.26% Given this minimum vote which was unlikely to be any different in the Joe Steele timeline, I see no point in having him in the template. As TR says, a Lit. Comm. to the effect that Turtledove makes a reference is sufficient. For whatever its worth, Wikipedia's template shows only the two main party candidates. ML4E (talk) 19:13, February 18, 2018 (UTC) ::::Yeah, they only seem to add third party candidates to the template when that person either won electoral votes (see 1948 and 1968, where Thurmond and George Wallace are listed, respectively) or captured some substantial percentage of the popular (1980 lists John B. Anderson, 1992 and 1996 both list Perot; both carried several million popular votes, neither carried a state). ::::Given that HT doesn't always give us electoral or popular votes in detail, we can't quite adopt that sort of rule. But when HT makes it clear that a fictional election is closely based on the same numbers used in the OTL election, then I think we can safely ignore the third-party candidate. TR (talk) 19:44, February 18, 2018 (UTC) Six states mentioned "Hoover on the other hand, carried only the six states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont." I assume you are going by the short story, since there is nothing that specific in the novel. Since the novel overwrites the short story in the canon, I'm not sure we should be that specific in this article. We can include a literary comment to the effect that the short story confirms these six states, but the story does not. TR (talk) 20:14, April 30, 2018 (UTC) :TR, those six state articles all mention that Hoover won them in 1932. However, 1932 section isn't sourced. Also, the election infobox also gives out the electoral votes and number of states that Hoover and Steele each carried. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 13:00, May 1, 2018 (UTC) ::Ok, those probably were the short story, and they need to be edited. TR (talk) 14:38, May 1, 2018 (UTC) :::Alright then. Thanks for fixing those articles. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 11:55, May 2, 2018 (UTC) Map While it's only the short story the mentioned that Hoover won the six states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont, it is pretty safe to assume that Hoover still would have carried those states in the novel like he did in the story and OTL. If that is the case, would it be appropriate to add a map of the states both Hoover and Steele won in 1932? We'd only need to modify the Democratic box on the Wikipedia/Wikimedia 1932 election map to change Roosevelt's name to Steele. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 19:50, June 27, 2018 (UTC) :Since we can't do maps for every election, I'm lukewarm to the idea, myself. TR (talk) 20:40, June 27, 2018 (UTC) :Same. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:29, June 27, 2018 (UTC) ::Given that it's identical to the OTL 1932 election, only with Joe Steele mad libbing for FDR, it seems more trouble than it's worth. It's not like United States Presidential Election, 1864 (The Guns of the South), which was truly inventive and did not resemble the OTL counterpart.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:38, June 27, 2018 (UTC) :::I could create the map on Wikimedia if you guys want. Given that's it would be identical to the OTL 1932 US Presidential Election map, it shouldn't be too hard. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 12:20, June 28, 2018 (UTC) ::::With respect Jacob, it's pretty clear that the majority is leaning towards "not interested.". TR (talk) 14:53, June 28, 2018 (UTC) :::::Meh, alright then guys. Suit yourselves. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 12:45, June 29, 2018 (UTC)